Dog sledding

The raw excitement around the dogs was palpable and contagious as they yipped, barked and howled with anticipation in the falling snow. While one group of riders split off and mounted their growling machines, I followed Beth, Justin, Katie and Derek through the thick snow to the sleds. Snow swiftly swirled around us and the restless dogs as the winds picked up and visibility diminished. The wirey dogs were quickly harnessed up and attached to the leads one by one, each of them seemingly bursting with excitement for the first sled run of the day.

Due to injury and lack of mobility, I would not be competing in the long anticipated games. Nearly 40 outdoors enthusiasts and social media influencers from the past four seasons of Columbia’s #Omniten program gathered near Park City, Utah for a collective competition. The competition would be a secret set of challenges, completed in teams, with a serious prize on the line. Once the content of the games was revealed and the teams were chosen, I began my own challenge: To tell the story of the games through photographs.

The final challenge for everyone in the competition would be “Charles Dickens”, a storytelling challenge. I knew the teams would be immersed in their activities, in some cases fighting the clock, and there would be little time or opportunity for them to capture the images that could bring their stories to life. In the highly visual mediums we have to portray our stories, images are invaluable and grab a reader’s attention quickly. So my challenge, my contribution to the games, would be to capture the moments that would help support the narratives of the competitors to the best of my abilities.

I chose to start my shoot with the first dog sled teams, passing up an opportunity to follow the first snowmobiles to the archery site. Everyone was excited about the dog sleds and I knew I needed to capture that excitement early while it was still raw, while the dogs were still fresh, while the apprehension was still visible. I wanted to focus on two things at this station, the excitement on people’s faces as they readied for their first ride and the explosive energy of the dogs. The dogs were much less cooperative than the #omniten but were the real stars, beautiful animals straining against their harnesses with incredible power.

The shooting wasn’t too difficult here, but getting around in a foot and a half or more of snow with a bad knee made for some sketchy moments. A couple of falls and bad twists made things interesting and set a cautious tone in my head about being physically able to follow the games. Still, I would do my best.

Making fire exciting

It was quiet once the dogs had run off with their sleds in tow. I set off across the snow to find the other teams working on their challenges. luckily for me the other events were clustered together, but they were up a hill…normally not an issue but this time it felt like an arduous trek. I struggled up the snowy, uneven path to the Fire Challenge.

Each team had 25 minutes to light a fire and get a small pot of water boiling. Not quite the excitement surrounding the dog sleds. Looking for storylines I focused on the expressions of concentration, I tried to capture the spark flying off the flint starter, and for those who were successful…flame. I started to realize my background in graphic design and sequential illustration played in to how I thought about the photos. During the Fire Challenge I really began to treat the photography like I was setting up a storyboard. I looked for “scene setting” images, “character” images and “action images” while in my head I stitched them together sequentially so I could visualize and capitalize on the gaps. This technique of visualizing a sequential storyline helped get me through the next few events.

I can’t be everywhere

I really wish I could have covered everyone at every event, but it just wasn’t possible. The Dog Sledding was too mobile and the archery event was too remote. Even the clustered events were difficult because I was having a hard time moving quickly enough through the snow to catch each team at each event. Knowing I couldn’t do it all, I began to broaden the scope of the story I could tell. Instead of focusing on individual stories, I realized I needed to tell the broader story of the games in general. I started thinking about the group story and how the individual stories would intertwine.

This released me from the idea that I had to capture everyone at every station. As long as I could cover different crews at each event I would be supporting the overall story. Still, the first day was a serious challenge.

Archery in the snow

I managed to grab a ride along on one of the snowmobiles later in day one. The weather had become more aggressive and our visibility was getting pretty tight when we took off. I remember thinking that this could make for some great dramatic images or it could ruin my equipment. I stored my gear for the ride out to protect it then set up once we reached the archery station.

Archery turned out to be some of the most dramatic imagery I captured on the first day. The wind picked up and the snow whipped through the frame while I narrowed in on the expressions of focus and concentration of our archers. Just the image of a drawn bow exudes tension, power and drama and has been used in imagery of warriors for millennia for just that reason. This was a pretty stationary event, like the fire building, so I worked my angles to capture a higher sense of action to support the narrative.

Day one of the #Omnigames wrapped up in whiteout conditions with the last of the #Omniten warming themselves indoors with bowls of fresh chili and hot chocolate. I found myself continuing to head outside even though the games were over just to enjoy the weather. Standing outside, wrapped in my warm Columbia gear with the wind and snow whipping around me I was able to have a little quiet time to think and appreciate where I was and how I got here.

Columbia Sportswear has developed a culture built around pushing boundaries and exploring our limits. Their products are designed with this in mind and the “Trying Stuff” mantra is a corporate rally cry that echoes throughout everything they do. We were brought together by Columbia because we embody this message, we live the “Trying Stuff” lifestyle with everything we do. To me it is just that, a lifestyle, a philosophy that permeates every part of our lives. It’s a personal commitment to accepting challenges and facing them with persistence and excitement…even joy.

Once you stop facing challenges, once you stop pushing your boundaries, you stop growing…you stop improving and learning. You stop living. I will always be “Trying Stuff” whether that means pushing my limits outdoors, developing my home and gardens to their full potential, learning new skills, or expanding my career. I was limited by injury on this trip but it didn’t stop me from “Trying Stuff”. I was able to explore my limits with photography and push my equipment, knowledge and skills to knew levels. Something that has me excited about doing more photography work in the future. At this point who knows where it will take me, but I’m excited to find out.

Despite fighting injuries that have severely limited my mobility throughout most of the year, it’s nice to look back and see that I still had a pretty stellar year. Between travel for family, trips with my wife and various Social Media events (including #Omniten and Outdoor Retailer) I have managed a hell of a lot of travel this year. I owe a lot of that to finally living in the same city with my wife, thus cutting down on the travel time we spent just to visit each other.

Even though I’ve spent half of the year in pretty bad pain, I still consider myself luckier than the average bear. The following is my Year in Review through the images that best represent each trip. Now, where should I go in 2014??

Monument Valley

November…

Oak Creek, Sedona

All in all, I would say it turned out to be a pretty epic year. I want to thank everyone who joined me and helped make this year’s travel possible, especially my patient and beautiful wife. And a special thanks to Angela and Tracy for helping to watch our four-legged family while we are off having adventures.

I’ve recently rediscovered a love and passion for the National Parks starting with a trip to Zion NP back in April. Since then I’ve visited Saguaro National Park and the Grand Canyon and have plans to visit Hawaii Volcano National Park and Death Valley before the year is over. Next year I hope to see Bryce, Arches, Canyonlands and Joshua Tree…maybe more!

My Zion trip inspired a cool collaborative project you may remember from previous posts. The Trail Sherpa National Parks Series is a collection of National Parks photos collected from the Trail Sherpa Network of bloggers, processed and curated by me. This project was really cool and a lot of fun. When we posted the collection publicly, Tim and I were flooded with emails from people who had photos they wanted to add to the collection, some of which seemed to have great stories behind them. The Trail Sherpa Series wasn’t the right place for that but we really wanted to be able to showcase some of these cool images and stories that people were itching to share.

Enter Parksfolio…

Parksfolio is our answer. Parksfolio will be a photographic journal of the National Parks as told by the many visitors who have a piece of the story to tell. We want Parksfolio to be THE place to share your favorite memories from the National Parks. It will be a place where people can tell us about their favorite trail, most amazing viewpoint, most memorable campsite or just share a really cool experience. What better way to honor the Parks Service’s 97th birthday!

Read the stories. Submit your own photo and story. Join the conversation by commenting on any story that moves you. Or search the stories to find inspiration for your next trip.

Two years ago I made a trip out to Mount Graham in eastern Arizona to see the Perseid meteor shower. On that trip, we arrived late as a storm had rolled in and set up camp in the rain. It rained all night and was a soggy mess in the morning, but we hiked, bagged some peaks, got in trouble with the feds, took a few pictures, slept through a second night of rain and clouds and came home. I never got a chance to see the meteor shower, or much of the night sky at all. Bummer.

Since that trip, I’ve become much more serious about photography and really, really wanted to do a night sky shoot. With the meteor shower reaching a peak this weekend I wanted to get back out to Mount Graham and try to not just see the celestial event but capture images of it. So I packed up some basics and headed out Sunday morning to make the 4 hour drive to Mount Graham.

Mount Graham and the Pinaleno Mountains are one of the Southeastern Arizona “Sky Islands”, a collection of isolated, high elevation peaks that are throwbacks to Arizona’s ancient past. As the climate has changed and the Ponderosa Pine forests have been pushed higher in elevation these mountains have become the island homes for many species that can’t survive the desert. The Sky Island Alliance has boasted, “the region harbors a diversity exceeding anywhere else in the U.S., supporting well over half the bird species of North America, 29 bat species, over 3,000 species of plants, and 104 species of mammals.”

These mountains also have pretty crazy weather. At nearly 11,000 ft they tower over the desert floor and clouds tend to pile up against them and then let loose. This is what caught me two years ago. And this is what was in store for me this weekend. A perfectly clear pleasant afternoon soon hinted at a cranky, grumbly storm as I drove up the twisting mountain road to camp. I stopped to take some pictures as the storm approached and built up steam.

Just as I reached camp and started to set up, the storm bullied it’s way over the mountain and let loose with a massive downpour. The camp host said it hadn’t rained for a week or so but the last time a storm came over lightning struck a tree at one of the campsites convincing the temporary residents to pack up and go home. This storm rolled right over the top of camp with thick walls of rain and hail, lightning striking so close I could smell it and thunder that seemed to crashing right between my ears.

Luckily I had the light rain jacket from Columbia to keep me dry as I scrambled to set up camp. I got the tent up in a hurry then decided I didn’t want to be stuck in the tent and set up the tarp I normally reserve for hammock camping. This allowed me to set up a nice little dry area where I could cook, hang out and watch the storm. The storm blasted camp for a good two hours, causing torrents of runoff to carve a path through camp. I took a stick and dug in a channel next to the tent to divert the drainage around the tent instead of under it…it helped.

Once the rain had stopped, I pulled out the camera to see if I could get a few post rain shots during the sunset. I didn’t get much and what I got seemed off but I didn’t know why. I waited out the sun busying myself with other camp duties. The moon would set around 9PM offering a nice dark sky for night shooting. I got the camera out and set up to do some long exposures and catch the Milky Way while I waiting for the meteor shower.

This was my first attempt at night shooting, my first attempt to do open shutter captures…and I couldn’t figure it out. It took me close to an hour to figure out how to lock the shutter open on the damn camera (I know, I felt like an idiot). Once I finally got it to work, I was having a really hard time capturing anything. Even keeping the shutter open for 3 or 4 minutes and with the ISO pushed up I was having no real success. Then I noticed that when I did get something in the viewfinder it looked weird.

Everything, and I mean everything, was wet from the storm. The storm had dropped so much water that as it got cold there was not a single dry surface anywhere…that included the lens! Dammit! I have been struggling to get these long exposure shots and all I was doing was shooting through a foggy, wet lens. After some necessary swearing, I finally found a cloth I could try to clean the lens with. I hoped I could get it clean and then get some shots. The problem was, the shots would take anywhere from 3 to 10 minutes to shoot and the mist would collect on the lens in less than 2 minutes. Ugh!

But I tried. I would set up the shot, clean the lens, open the shutter…wait. I would also have to hold my breath when setting up the camera because the steam from my breathing would fog the lens immediately. So I would hold my breath, set up the shot, clean the lens, open the shutter, then scurry far enough away to exhale and take a breath. Seriously….?

It was about the time I got this system down that I realized my battery was dying and eventually wouldn’t let me take a shot. How the hell did I take off for two days of shooting without charging the battery?? Good thing I had a backup. I swapped the batteries and, nope, that one was dead too. GOD DAMMIT!! What the hell? I could have sworn I had charged the batteries after my last trip…but I guess I hadn’t.

So, dead batteries, wet lens, battery going dead on my headlamp and the cold starting to get to me…I put the camera away just as the meteor shower was supposed to get going. At least I will get to watch it, even if I can’t try to shoot it. I waited. 1AM…not much to see, a couple of streaks but not much of a show. 1:30AM…still nothin. Peak show is supposed to be from 1AM to 3AM…where is it? 2AM…Do I have to buy a ticket? Is that why I’m not seeing much of anything?

At about 2:30AM I got frustrated that I wasn’t seeing much. I was cold, tired, wet and my foot was killing me from stumbling around camp all night. I called it and went to bed.

With the good camera useless, I decided to pack up and head home instead of doing a second night. If my busted foot wasn’t feeling so sore I might have stayed just to hike around the mountain a little bit. It’s a beautiful place. But I had come out for the photography and my equipment was shot. The upside was that I did get to use my new Induro tripod and I really liked it. So much lighter and easier than my older tripod. Very impressed with it.

The next morning I walked around a little with my smaller camera and tried to shoot some of the scenery in the morning light. There really is an abundance of stuff to shoot in the mountains. Especially for late Summer, this is the place to find some amazing plants and animals to capture. I really wish I been better prepared and in better shape to hike around the mountain this weekend, but I will go back.

That’s two failed trips to Mount Graham…one of these days I’ll do it right. I promise!

A few months ago, after returning from Zion National Park I started a project inside the Trail Sherpa Network. We collectively submitted photos from the National Parks and I processed them to be a part of a collection…an ever growing collection…of prime photos from our National Parks. The idea was to use the best images from within our group of bloggers to create an amazing collection representing as many National Parks as we could collect.

I was really happy with the result. We collected amazing photos representing a dozen Parks. I hope to eventually have a Trail Sherpa Network photograph for every National Park to fill out the collection. There are still a few of the bloggers that have said they have photos to submit for the collection but haven’t gotten around to sending them yet.

It’s interesting the conversations you overhear, out of context, that resonate with you. It happened for me at camp this weekend in Grand Canyon at the Desert View Campground.

Desert View is a first-come-first-served no-reservations campground on the extreme eastern end of the park. It sees a lot of last-minute campers that couldn’t make reservations at the main campground near Grand Canyon Village, so it’s quite the motley crew when it fills up. We had everything from drunk Canadian party boys to German families to nomadic guitar playing hippies. We also had a small herd of urban hipsters who were seemingly lost, because they sure didn’t seem to be happy about this whole “camping” thing.

One morning two of the hipsters had broken from the purposefully-uninterested, apathetic herd and were conversing in the typical condescending fashion. Clearly, one of the two was not satisfied with sitting around camp practicing cool indifference and honing his snarky, sarcastic wit. He struggled to explain his ambitions to his friend.

I have never heard anyone struggle so much to explain their need for ADVENTURE. In his struggle to verbalize his inexplicable desire to do something exciting he inadvertently delivered what I believe is the best definition of “Adventure” I’ve ever heard. I really hope this guy got the adventure he was after, but sadly his tribe probably snarked him into submission.

But his plea for adventure got me thinking about my own trip. How did our little trip to the Grand Canyon measure up to these requirements? Would he have approved of our own little adventure?

…Go for a walk…go somewhere…

Broken foot or not, we did hike. It wasn’t far and it wasn’t difficult, but we hiked. Even with a full campground and a tourist packed National Park we found and hiked trails that had few, if any, other people on them. We found places along the South Rim with epic views and quiet solitude.

…Meet random people…

Most notably, we made the acquaintance of local photographer, and ex-Grateful-Dead-chasing-hippie Jeff Franklin. As we sat at Shoshone Point waiting for sunset, Jeff made his way out to the point and chatted us up for the next couple hours. He was an interesting guy with a lot of stories to tell. He lives in the area and his wife works for Grand Canyon Village so he spends his time biking and hiking the area exploring and taking pictures. We talked about The Park, conservation, history, nature, and he offered some tips and insight for exploring some of the more remote regions of the Canyon.

…See random things…

Among seeing tourists dangling from the edges of the canyon, posing with dangerous wildlife and wearing some of the most inappropriate and outrageous clothing you’d expect to see at a National Park…I’d say it got pretty random. But nothing takes the cake for randomness like Bedrock City. It’s the one place where if I were to show you the pictures, out of context and without the story, most people would react with a big fat WTF! In the 1970s when The Flinstones was still a very popular cartoon and Hanna-Barbara was the king of Saturday mornings this place made perfect sense. Now though, it qualifies as a VERY random roadside oddity.

…Do something slightly unsafe…

Admittedly, this is my favorite part of any adventure. This one is pretty subjective because what I consider “unsafe” and what others consider “unsafe” can vary by a wide margin. With my busted foot, I wasn’t in a position to push the boundaries too much. But I imagine our hipster buddy would potentially break into a cold sweat and get wobbly in the knees standing too close to the 400+ foot drop offs at some of the Canyon edges. We saw plenty of tourists who’s own fear of heights kept them well behind the guardrails.

I guess, all in all, when I look back on the trip through the thick-rimmed retro glasses of Mr. Skinny Jeans I think we satisfied his criteria for fun and adventure. Standards differ and there are varying levels of adventure, but the basics are all here…go somewhere new, see random stuff, meet random people and do something that scares you…even if just a little bit.

If you have a story about seeing random stuff, meeting random people or doing something that scares you…share it with me in the comments! I love those kinds of stories!

I know, I know…I haven’t done a Photograph of the Week in a long time. Everything blog-related was pretty much put on hold while I was recovering from my busted foot. Now that I can get around a little bit I feel more motivated to post AND I actually have a few things to post about. So, to kick things off again I wanted to post a collection of pictures from my recent trip to Grand Canyon National Park showing four consecutive days of Sunset in Grand Canyon.

First Sunset: Bedrock City, Arizona…

Somehow, there’s always a lot to do the day of a trip. Without fail, it seems like I’m overwhelmed with last minute random chores to get done when we are trying to get out of town. Another reason why flexibility is the overriding theme to all my travel plans. We didn’t make it all the way to the Grand Canyon on the first day and decided to stop for the night in Bedrock City just outside of Williams. This was a fun, spontaneous decision that felt much more adventurous than the local KOA. That first night we set up the teardrop, busted out the camp stove and made dinner as the sun was bearing down on the horizon. While dinner was cooking, I grabbed the camera and snapped off a few shots of the sunset.

Nikon D300 w/ 24-105 Lens – f6.3 – 1/160sec – ISO 200 – 35mm

Second Sunset: The Watchtower…

We camped at Desert View Campground, about 28 miles east of the main entrance to the park and Grand Canyon Village. After driving through the main section and seeing what kind of circus Mather Campground is I was really happy we had made the decision to check out Desert View. It’s a first-come-first-served campground so timing is key if you’re going to find a spot. We got lucky and managed to grab what I believe was the best spot in the campground. That first night in Grand Canyon we decided to check out the sunset view from The Watchtower, which is only a quarter mile or so from camp. We hiked along the rim a ways to stake out a spot away from the crowds. As sunset approached we still had a sporadic groups of tourists jockeying for a spot along the rim to snap shots of the sunset with their cell phones.

I set up on a promontory that got me out enough to be able to shoot the sunset without the tourists in the frame (I know, I keep saying “tourist” like I wasn’t one…hehe). We waited…and waited…I was looking for a nice show. There were nice clouds in the sky, the canyon was clear, visibility was great…we just needed the light to break through. It never really happened. That first night was a bust and the sunset fizzled out like a match that burned itself out. The images for that night were more moody, with subtle light in the clouds and a misty stacked silhouette of purple canyon walls.

Nikon D300 w/ 10-24 Lens – f29 – 1.3sec – ISO 320 – 22mm

Third Sunset: Return to The Watchtower…

We tried to take it easy for the second day in the canyon, I didn’t want to overwork my busted foot since I was just getting used to walking again. We got up early that day and got to shoot the sunrise at from the cliffs at Desert View just a short walk from camp. That night I wanted to get back to The Watchtower for sunset, I felt robbed the night before. It is a great vantage point and the canyon view from there made for great photos but the show the night before was weak. I wanted another shot at it and the sky was shaping up to have a lot of potential.

We came out a little later than the night before, it had been cold and windy the first night and we waited for a long time with nothing much to show for it. Arriving later meant I lost my spot though, as it had been taken over by a large group of Asian tourists. We hiked further down the trail looking for a quiet spot to set up and found a great little overlook. That night the sun cooperated and gave us a little more of the display I was looking for. My expectations were high, so even with a “nice” sunset I felt like the canyon was holding back. We would have one more shot after this, but I was still happy with at least a couple of the sunset images we got that night. My wife was shooting the D70s with the 24-105 lens and had much better luck since she could get in tighter on the scene we had that night.

Nikon D300 w/ 10-24 Lens – f4.2 – 1/40sec – ISO 320 – 19mm

Last Sunset: ShoShone Point…

We got the inside scoop about Shoshone Point from one of the Park Rangers working at The Watchtower. He gave us clear directions and told us it was the perfect short, easy hike that I could do with my limited mobility and would give us a stellar view of The Canyon for sunset. He added that Shoshone Point is one of his personal favorite vantage points on the South Rim and it is never crowded. Sounded like the perfect spot! What he didn’t tell us is that the location is available for events and we got there just as a full blown wedding was wrapping up. The bridal party had taken over the point for wedding photos!

Luckily they wrapped up before sunset and everyone headed out leaving the point to Merelyn and I. Shortly after that we were joined by an eccentric local photographer that seemed to be happy to have some folks to talk to. We sat and waited. Things were shaping up nicely but you never know, the clouds move one way or another and can blow the whole thing. Then the show started and for the next 40 minutes or so I hopped and shuffled all over the point shooting the changes in The Canyon as the light moved. The sun cast intense rays across The Canyon catching corners and edges and making for some dramatic shooting. I shot with the wide-angle and my wife shot with the 24-105 and we both captured some great stuff.

Nikon D300 w/ 10-24 Lens – f22 – 1/15sec – ISO 320 – 10mm

When the Sun finally did drop behind the cliff the color in the sky changed completely and I dropped the exposure a little. I had promised Merelyn we wouldn’t stay too long so we wouldn’t be hiking back to the truck in the dark, but I couldn’t leave the sunset before it was done and it had more story to tell. Our photographer friend was there to the bitter end shooting a time-lapse of the sunset, so as the last of the viable shots for me slipped away we said goodbye and headed back down the dark trail to the truck. Luckily it wasn’t much of a hike back and we did just fine.

My wife and I recently visited California to see some friends and family. We spent Saturday afternoon driving down the coast from Monterey through Big Sur on the scenic Highway 1. We stopped several times along the way to hike, take pictures and get riddled with Poison Oak (not so much fun). As the afternoon wore on the fog got thick and it looked like the sunset would be a bust. I had been hoping to get a nice coastal sunset in this scenic area but nothing is guaranteed in nature.

A little over an hour before true sunset, the sun started to break through the clouds and offer a little pre-sunset drama. We quickly pulled off the highway at a scenic overlook and I hopped out with the tripod to grab a few shots of the light display. This was going to be a narrow window and a slightly challenging shot.

I knew I would be looking to shoot a sunset along the coast and had been trying to get myself a nice Neutral Density Graduated Filter for the job. This would allow me to shoot a little slower to expose the darker ocean and maybe even get some motion blur without over exposing the sky. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get the filter I wanted before the trip. So I would have to get the shot and figure it out later.

Photograph of the Week: The RAW shot…

The challenge is balancing the exposure. You don’t want to overexpose the sky so that the clouds and light still holds detail. But at the same time you don’t want to underexpose the landscape (ocean) and risk losing detail there either. Since the clouds only broke in a small part of the sky the entire shot would be very dark except for the light shining through the clouds. I managed to get a couple of images that struck the balance between exposures allowing me to process them as if I were working with a real filter.

Photograph of the Week: Processing in Lightroom…

The first thing I did was adjust the exposure so the darker areas were exposed properly. This blew out the light in the sky and the glow of the clouds but I’d fix that later. Once the exposure was corrected I did my usual work of pulling shadows and creating deeper blacks to add depth. I then pushed on the Clarity and Vibrance to create sharper contrast and pull more vivid color. Color would be important but I didn’t want to oversaturate the image, so I only made a slight adjustment to the Saturation.

This got me away from a very gray and underexposed image, but the sky was now over exposed. I applied a Gradient Filter to the top of the image allowing me to adjust the sky without effecting the ocean and landscape. With the filter in place I was able to bring the exposure of the sky back down a couple of steps where it was more natural and the detail returned. I still had a very gray sky so I pushed the Temp setting slightly toward the cooler side. The result gave me a better setting for the warm light that was pouring through the clouds.

I finished my adjustments by pushing the Sharpness as far as I dared, then smoothing the noise by increasing the Luminance. This is something I’ve been doing on almost every image because it allows me to get crisp detail and sharp edges with almost no noise at all.

Photograph of the Week: Magic from Color Efex Pro…

I tried to keep it simple in Color Efex Pro. I just wanted a little warmth to the light and maybe a little sharper detail. I started by applying the basic Brilliance/Warmth filter which gives a nice warm glow to the light in the image, but won’t overly warm the cooler colors. Then I wanted to punch the light in the sky up a little, so I applied the Skylight filter and the Sunlight filter. Both of those seem only to enhance existing light in an image without doing too much to mid tones and shadows. These filters also seemed to bring some luminosity and warms to the reflected light on the ocean surface.

I finished off my adjustments by adding another Graduated Neutral Density Filter to the image creating more contrast in the cloudy sky. Graduated filters in both Lightroom and Color Efex Pro allowed me to balance out the exposure on a very unbalanced scene. I can’t wait to get a real physical Neutral Density Filter so I can try some other tricks.

Once the adjusted TIFF file was back in Lightroom I increased the Sharpness and Luminosity again, kinda just to see what would happen. It gave the image a very painterly quality, but on such a small scale it’s hard to see without blowing it up. But enlarged, the image has no noise and very clean edges, the textures also came in super clean. I might start doing this final step regularly.

Specifications:

This image was shot on a Nikon D300 with a Nikon Nikkor 10-24mm lens.

Exp: 1/20 sec, F/22, ISO-200, 10mm.

Originally shot in RAW format and processed in Adobe Lightroom and finished in NIK Color Efex Pro 4.

My camera was in the shop. My D300 and wide angle lens had to go in for deep cleaning after my recent trip to Zion. It needed it. It just so happened that while my Nikon was having a spa weekend, there were wondrous things taking place at my neighbor’s house.

I have been working on a collection of photographs of Cacti in Bloom, taking advantage of what is expected to be a unusually showy season for cactus around Southern Arizona. Some of the shots I can get from the trail, but there are many varieties concentrated in private yards around town. I have a couple of neighbors who have nice collections and I’ve been watching them for blooms. One particular neighbor has a couple of nice Easter Lily Cactus specimens in his yard which produce a gorgeous bloom. I watched and waited, studied the light and took note of the best times to shoot so I’d be ready when the flowers came in.

Then they arrived. Tall trumpet shaped flutes stood tall and opened wide revealing beautiful, delicate pinkish-purple petals. The blooms came during the night, and were boldly welcoming the sunrise the next day. As the sun climbed, it cast it’s rays toward the flowers and they seemed to glow with the morning light. I walked over several times that morning to watch, to study…but my camera was in the shop. Damn it!

Thinking I would get my camera back soon, I watched the flowers all day. It could make for a dramatic sunset shot if the light was right. This was an exciting prospect. As the day wore on I anxiously waited for my camera, I even considered taking shots with the D70 but felt that wasn’t going to cut it. Late in the afternoon I still hadn’t heard from the camera shop and disaster struck. The beautiful blooms were wilting. The flowers closed and drooped in a tired, spent surrender to the midday heat. There would be no sunset shots, maybe no shots at all if this cactus didn’t have the resources to bloom again this season.

My camera returned from it’s luxurious spa treatment the next day, but there was nothing to shoot. But I kept my eyes on the cactus and eventually it bloomed again. This time even bigger and better. I caught them in the morning again and quickly scrambled to collect my gear and run to the neighbor’s house to catch it early while the light was still nice. I took a series of shots, most with the tripod…but a few required me to contort myself into odd positions with my head and hands precariously close to other cacti in the yard. I was really happy with the results.

Photograph of the Week: Adjustments in Lightroom

I’ve asked around and it seems that people really do like the “process” side of the Photograph of the Week just as much as the story side, so I’ll walk through the process a little more on this one to show how I treated the image. I shoot in RAW on my Nikon so I can work the fine details in Lightroom. Shooting RAW generally delivers a very dull image as it essentially ignores basic camera settings that would normally apply to tiff or jpg images (no in-camera processing for white balance, hue, tone and sharpening are applied to the NEF file). It’s a digital negative, and requires processing (developing) just like film would.

You can see the RAW image for this shot is dark, flat and doesn’t have any vibrance of color to it. One of the first things I do in my developing process is to create contrast and depth by reducing the Shadows and increasing the Blacks. I will then adjust the Clarity setting for the image and see if I need to fine tune Shadows, Highlights, Blacks or Whites to balance the image. Once I’ve got those basics dialed in I play with the Vibrance and Saturation settings if needed. Sometimes, these don’t need to be adjusted but I will often boost at least the Vibrance setting which works well to bring out the glow of morning or evening light.

On most images, there isn’t much else I have to do. In the case of this photo, I didn’t touch anything else except the Sharpness(I always push for heightened sharpness in landscape images). With all of that dialed in I had a really nice, sharp, clean, colorful image.

In order to edit the file in any of the plugins it must export to a TIFF file. Then it opens in the selected plugin allowing you to make your fine adjustments. I opened this file in Color Efex Pro to drop a couple of filters on it and create some subtle enhancements. I played with a few things, but I created a nice recipe that worked for this set of images.

I wanted a couple of subtle adjustments, nothing too dramatic since I was really happy with everything I did in Lightroom. Anything too heavy would overpower and ruin the image. But I wanted to help boost the “sunrise glow” the morning had and I felt like I wanted to slightly adjust the color to bring out the flower’s natural hue.

I started with the Reflector Efex filter giving the highlights a soft golden glow, fine tuning the settings to keep it subtle. Then I dropped a purple graduated Bi-Color Filter over the whole image setting the opacity very low. This solidified the pinks but also further softened the glow from the Reflector Efex by giving the golden highlights an extra dose of purple color. I toyed with tonal contrast, but dropped it as it seemed to create too harsh of an effect. Then looked at what the Detail Extractor would do and ultimately left it out as well.

In the end, I feel like I managed to develop an image that highlights the delicate beauty of the bloom and really creates the feeling of a warm sunrise.

Specifications:

This image was shot on a Nikon D300 with a Nikon Nikkor 24-120mm lens.

Exp: 1/160, F/6.3, ISO-200, 45mm.

Originally shot in RAW format and processed in Adobe Lightroom and finished in NIK Color Efex Pro 4.

I’ve spent the last two days editing and fine tuning photographs from this weekend’s trip to Zion National Park. I’m very tired, but it’s been incredibly rewarding. I feel like I have some great images in spite of being overwhelmed by the enormity of such a small park.

I tried not to approach my visit to this park with any specific photographic goals. Normally I research a location before I visit so that I can figure out which shots have been overdone, which iconic features are “must see”, or if sunrise or sunset are better times to shoot. With Zion I let all of that go and figured I would simply drive to the park and see what there was to see. I even resisted the urge to purchase a map of the park before my visit.

I chose to drive in from the lonely east side of Zion. Coming from Phoenix, the route up through Northern Arizona and across Southern Utah seemed more adventurous and intriguing than zooming along major highways through Las Vegas. This route meant less traffic and rare views of the Colorado River, Marble Canyon and the Kaibab Plateau. It also meant there were no lines to get into the park. The east entrance was eerily quiet.

As soon as I entered Zion, my truck slowed to a crawl. I’m sure there were the obligatory posted speed limits, but they were unnecessary as it is impossible to drive through Zion without slowing to look at the dramatic scenery. I don’t think I was inside the park boundary for more than five minutes before I was wheeling my grumbling truck to a dusty pullout and clawing at my camera equipment. My truck left idling restlessly with the rear door thrown open, I scrambled up a loose, sandy slope to capture my first shots of Zion National Park.

I was not alone, other vehicles were strewn at random angles in haste as eager photographers abandoned their cars, trucks and rented RVs to point their lenses toward a dramatic, alien landscape. I pushed on, stopping here and there, but forcing myself toward camp.

My adventure was just getting started and I had a partner-in-crime for the weekend that I had yet to meet.

RSS Feed

Dave Creech is a successful business owner and entrepreneur based in Phoenix, Arizona. He shares his personal story and lifelong passion for travel and rugged outdoor adventure through his blog at WildernessDave.com. David’s focus has been on trip stories, gear reviews, Wilderness Medicine and a series of articles aimed at introducing Yoga to hikers and backpackers as a path to staying fit, healthy and injury free.